@Leo "We are all free to move out of this country. You can't call people sheep if you yourself voluntarily choose to stay in a country that you feel is enslaving their citizens."

Not really. The US still tries to tax expats for 10 years, a very draconian North Korea-esque policy also severely limits or excludes your ability to return to the US even as a 'tourist' to visit friends & family. So people choose the lesser of two evils, preferring to stay with their friends & family and in the land where they were born & raised. You can't fault them for that, and it's certainly not fair to say that "If you don't like it, you have an obligation to get the fuck out!" the country was founded on principles like freedom of association and freedom of expression, so it saddens me when people say things like, "If you don't like it, move somewhere else!" that's just a defeatist mentality.

But yeah I do agree that this is just not much of an issue and it's tough to get really riled up about "my freedom" in this regard. However, the historical record demonstrates that the "slippery slope" or the "ratchet effect" is not just a bogey-man dreamed up by tin-foil hat wearing libertarians to troll arguments on the internets, it's real.

There are certainly far more pressing concerns though with the US government, and how it impacts your freedom. Like a never-ending capacity to kill brown people in poor countries. That's your tax dollars hard at work. Or the revelation that the government is totally owned by big corporations - some people had been warning this for years but it took that 2008 crash to really bring it all to light. Or the "war on drugs" that costs life & liberty in real terms. Etc.

kids' snowboard helmets simply isn't on the radar of things I can give a shit about.